Sami Modiano rolls up his sleeve to expose the number B 7456, tattooed on his left arm upon arrival at the Birkenau concentration camp.

Holocaust survivor Sami Modiano's voice trembles as he warns Maltese teenagers to never forget the horrors that decimated the Jewish community in the light of rising xenophobia and racism.

“I was a schoolboy like you when I was expelled simply because I was a Jew. Look at the immigrants and Muslims facing persecution today. This can happen to you tomorrow. You’ll be at school, and they will drag you out simply because of your race,” he said.

Raising his voice when the students became fidgety and started chatting, Mr Modiano implored them to take an interest.

“When I was young, 80 per cent of boys like you would have been sent to the gas chambers. I have faith in you: read up and educate yourselves to ensure the atrocities we faced will never happen again,” he urged.

Mr Modiano, 86, was yesterday sharing his experience with boys from St Ignatius College Ħandaq, Qormi, as part of events organised by the President's Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

The events were organised in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Embassy, in collaboration with the Education Department and the support of the embassies of Germany and the Netherlands.

Mr Modiano recounted how he was raised in Rhodes – which was under Italian occupation during World War II – and had a happy childhood living with his parents, Diana and Jacob, and his older sister, Lucia.

Roll call at Buchenwald concentration camp, ca.1938-1941.

But his idyllic life was shattered on July 18, 1944, when the Germans occupied Rhodes. On that summer day, 13-year-old Sami, with his family and friends, was ushered into the hold of cargo boats used to shuttle animals.

“We never knew where we were going. They crammed 450 people into a small space that was still filthy with cattle's excrement and urine. They gave us just five buckets of water and left us there,” he said, speaking in Italian.

They crammed 450 people into a small space that was still filthy with cattle's excrement and urine

“You cannot even begin to imagine the degrading, inhuman conditions we faced. Many died on the way from heat and starvation, and we had to throw them overboard like a sack of potatoes. For the Germans, we were beasts, not humans.”

That trip from Rhodes to the concentration camp at Birkenau took one entire month.

It was the longest journey that the Jews heading to concentration camps had to face.

When they reached Birkenau, there was German SS officer Josef Mengele – known as the Angel of Death – deciding the fate of the new arrivals. The weak, young and elderly were sent to the gas chambers, while the others were sentenced to hard work.

“Suddenly we became just numbers, all identically dressed in filthy striped pyjamas,” Mr Modiano said, rolling up his sleeve to expose the number B 7456 tattooed on his left arm.

This physical scar pales in comparison to the mental scars that still pain him: losing his father and sister to the gas chambers, and the atrocities he witnessed.

Six months later, he was forced to walk from Birkenau to Auschwitz, where he nearly died during the march. Exhausted, he was left among the corpses and was eventually rescued by a Russian nurse.

Mr Modiano has asked himself repeatedly why his life was spared, and he feels his mission is to tell the story of those who died and to fight against the erasure of history.

“I’m here to bear testimony to my father and the millions who died. Let us never forget!”